A Greek inner cabinet meeting on Tuesday discussed a draft bill aimed
to better regulate social security funds. Speaking to reporters, after
the meeting, Labour Minister Savvas Tsitouridis said the draft
legislation would ensure the implementation of legislation and end any
unfair measures in the system.

Under the draft bill, board members in social security funds and
organisations could lose their jobs if they failed to draft the proper
balance sheets and business plans. Tsitouridis said the draft bill also
envisaged a rescheduling of social security contribution debt to the
Social Security Fund (IKA), a move that could help both the market and
the fund.

The Greek minister stressed that the government would continue its
interventions to ensure a better present and future for the social
security system, saying more legislative initiatives would be taken
from September to strengthen the existing legislation.

Tsitouridis said the draft bill would be tabled to parliament soon and
said the inner cabinet unanimously adopted the draft legislation.

Opposition parties slam draft social security bill

Measures in the draft social security bill unveiled by the government
on Tuesday morning were slammed as "too little, too late" by the main
opposition PASOK party, which said that they could not solve the huge
problems of Greece's ailing pension system.

According to PASOK MP Maria Damanaki, these problems had sharply
increased in the years of ruling New Democracy rule:

"In these last two and a half years, the state's debts to social
insurance funds have doubled and contribution evasion has increased by
more than 30 percent, while the measures unveiled today will increase
contribution evasion further," she said.

According to Damanaki, the government's pre-announcement of settlements
of business debts to social insurance funds almost a year earlier had
encouraged companies to avoid paying even the bare minimum and would
probably cover them for the coming 18 months as well.

PASOK parliamentary coordinator for social insurance issues Evi
Christofilopoulou, meanwhile, accused the government of driving up
debts to social insurance funds and undermining their viability.

According to Dimitris Stratoulis of the Coalition of the Left,
Movements and Ecology (SYN) party, the draft bill was introducing
measures that allowed business to virtually "write-off" debts of â¬3.0
billion owed to social insurance funds.

"In this way, [the government] is rewarding employers that
systematically indulge in contribution evasion, contribution theft and
contribution avoidance, while essentially encouraging those employers
that have so far observed their legal insurance obligations to break
the law," Stratoulis said.

Greece on Tuesday decided to contribute two Navy vessels and a
specialist commando divers unit to an enlarged international
peacekeeping force in Lebanon, at a meeting of the Government Council
for Foreign Affairs and Defence (KYSEA) chaired by Prime Minister
Costas Karamanlis.

Announcing the decision, Defence Minister Vangelis Meimarakis and
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said the council had decided to send
one Navy frigate and its helicopter, the diving unit to carry out ship
inspections and, if necessary, a Greek landing vessel to transport
humanitarian aid from Cyprus to Beirut.

The government said it will consider sending other units in the future
but with the strict condition that the situation in the region has
normalised. For the time being, it completely rules out sending Greek
land forces to the area.

The decision was also formally announced by government spokesman
Theodoros Roussopoulos later on Tuesday, who said that it was in
accordance with the United Nations resolution for Lebanon.

In addition to the diving unit and Greek Navy vessels, Greece will also
provide administrative personnel and support supplies, he added.

Roussopoulos noted that Greece was among the first countries to arrive
in the region with a significant number of ships to evacuate foreign
nationals fleeing the bombardment of Lebanon and had also sent sizeable
quantities of humanitarian aid through both state and other
organisations.

The spokesman was also questioned once again concerning the foreign
minister's tour of the Middle East, which begins later on Tuesday, and
why this did not include a stop in Syria.

Pointing out that Greece has very good relations with the countries in
the Middle East, he asked reporters not to place undue emphasis on
event.

Prior to her departure and attending the KYSEA meeting, Bakoyannis had
met with the prime minister.

She said that the aims of her trip, which will include stops in Cyprus,
Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, are to get a detailed picture of the
situation and a full briefing to prepare for the takeover by Greece of
the United Nations Security Council presidency on September 1.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is due to arrive in Athens on
September 4 for a trilateral meeting with prime minister Costas
Karamanlis and Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev, foreign
minister Dora Bakoyannis announced on Tuesday, adding that the meeting
was being held at Putin's initiative, while development minister
Dimitris Sioufas said the talks would focus on the
Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.

Meanwhile, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos told a press
briefing that the agenda of the meeting was energy issues, with the
main thrust on the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline.

Roussopoulos added that the Greek government has taken a series of
actions aimed at rendering Greece an energy hub in the region.

The government on Tuesday sternly dismissed charges that state services
were slow to react to a major wildfire in northern Greece the previous
day, with the relevant interior minister stressing that all that was
"humanly possible" was done considering the mini "heatwave" hovering
over the area.

An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 hectares of forestland, fields and olive
groves had been burned by Monday afternoon in the Kassandra peninsula
of Halkidiki prefecture, a holiday destination east of the northern
port city of Thessaloniki.

Roughly 50 residences, including legal and illegal holiday homes, were
also burned, along with the destruction of shops, cars, farm machinery
and livestock. Power outages were also restored by Tuesday morning in
the affected areas.

At noon Tuesday, the blaze had been contained in the southwest part of
Kassandra, the western most of three peninsulas on verdant Halkidiki
that jut into the sea.

National Bank on Tuesday announced that it was continuing its drive
towards further expanding activities abroad, and in particular,
southeast Europe.

Greece's largest financial institution stated its intent in a letter
sent to the Athens Stock Exchange.

National Bank said it has submitted a binding offer for the takeover of
Serbian bank Vojvodjanska Banka and CEC in Romania. Serbian
privatization authorities have also declared National Bank as a
first-ranked bidder and the two sides were currently in negotiations
over the sale of Vojvodjanska Banka.

In the privatization of CEC in Romania, National Bank - along with a
Hungary-based bank - have been included in a short-list of candidates
and were expected to submit improved offers.

National Bank is expected to announce its second quarter results on
Thursday, Aug. 31.

In its letter to the Athens Stock Exchange, National Bank said it
planned to apply with Turkey's Capital Markets Commission for a public
bid to buy minority stakes in Finansbank AS and Finans Finansal
Kiralama AS (Finans Leasing). Turkish market authorities are expecting
National Bank to ask for an exemption from submitting public bids to
buy minority stakes in Finans Yatirim Ortakligi.

Finansbank recently completed the sale of its international
stakeholdings, Finans International Holding NV and Finansbank Romania,
to FIBA Holding AS for 600 million US dollars and repurchased 99.9
percent of Finansbank Malta Ltd from Finans International Holding NV
for 48 million US dollars.